In a mapping application, the map of the entire world can be represented as a polygon such as a square or rectangle that can be partitioned into hierarchically organized tiles. Each tile may be associated with information related to cartographic details such as water, land, cities, roads, parks, and so on, that correspond with the features of the portion delimited by such tile.
As is known, nearly three-quarters of Earth's surface is covered by water, with the vast majority of this being contained in large bodies of water covering large continuous regions, such as in the oceans. Thus, a map tile containing an attribute “water only”—i.e., water but no cities, roads, parks, etc. —may, in a mapping database, be functionally repeated identically numbering in the millions.
Initial tile generation from raw map data, thus, may create numerous functionally redundant “water only” tiles. And, the client-server session may implicate many “water only” tiles on the server side, on the client side, and in packets transmitted between server and client. Even certain land tiles can be functionally redundant. For example, the continent Antarctica has minimal mapping features.